Blueprint for Men’s Happiness

Life is an opportunity—so what are you doing with it? This month’s overarching theme is Inspired Living, and Men’s Wellness (happiness) is the sub-theme. Let’s say that men are most likely the less complex of the two types of human inhabitants of this planet. Men and women are just wired differently. I believe that the road to men’s happiness can be a simple one. Reaching the destination requires four things:

1. Forgive your father. He more than likely did the best he could with the tools he had.

2. Cut your mother’s umbilical cord. Your mother will continue to be your mother if you let her. It’s her job. She carried you nine months in her stomach, and probably took every precaution to keep you and her safe while you were gestating. So protect your “inner warrior” or “male qi” by lovingly advising your mom that her job is done. Don’t get me wrong, some of us wouldn’t have survived our youth if it wasn’t for our parents. Their guidance and practical advice no doubt served us well during our formative years.

3. Do “guy stuff” periodically. Get some guys together and do some white water rafting, hiking, a motorcycle run or camping. If these activities are a tall order, go out for dinner or a couple rounds of beer. This allows you to flex your male energy without any inhibitions. It’s freeing and even therapeutic.

4. Do the right thing. It’s easy to know what that is because it’s the easy or simple thing to do, because it’s more than likely encoded in our DNA. The wrong thing to do can require lots of work like scheming, lying, manipulation, rationalization, justification and more. Apparently, the truth does set you free—free of all that extra work.

Now for “inspired living”. Life is short. We can get caught up in parental and societal programming for decades until we figure out what truly makes us happy. That is why you see a lot of people re-assessing their beliefs and desires somewhere in their 40s to 60s, because our ideas tends to change once we get a little wisdom under our belts. We think it’s just scrambling, as in long-overdue
action that finally starts moving us towards doing the things we truly want to do, or creating the things in our lives that we truly want to create. Getting closer to the twilight years tends to have a motivating effect, but why wait? It’s never too soon to start moving toward what you want…right now.

See you on the shores of the world!
Jerry & Pat Hocek, Publishers

Tags: environment, health, Natural Awakenings, nutrition, spiritual